Project Budget Tips

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Let's consider the budget

We all want a beautiful, unique, functional website for our business but many of us have no real idea what it might cost to get one. While not always fun, talking dollars and cents will act as a reality check on the scope of your website design project.

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Whether you’re building from scratch or upgrading a current website, it’s important to have some understanding of website pricing and the various elements that can affect price. This will allow you to be ready to adapt if need be, once you send for quotes.

It’s common that website quotes can be extremely varied and this can make the whole process quite daunting. If one quote is cheap and one is expensive, it’s only natural to wonder which the truth is ─ is the expensive one a rip off or the cheap one shoddy? Unfortunately it is rarely that simple.

Bluewire’s very own web strategist and developer Lesley Hays, spoke to me recently about the different things that can affect price.

DIVERSITY IN PRICING

Price is affected primarily by two things ─ the situation of the person giving the quote, and the features you want on the website. Let’s consider the first factor.

Who is quoting?

The people quoting for the job might well be able to build the website, but at what cost? There are numerous external factors that can influence the final quote. For example a sole trader might be able to quote cheaper than a mid-sized web agency since they do not have the company overheads associated with running a larger business. The flip side of this is that the sole trader is higher risk in terms of long term reliability. There is no guarantee that they will still be contactable in years to come. With the mid-size agency you might receive a more expensive quote, but with that comes testing and quality assurances, along with long term reliability.

It’s important for you to consider what your needs are as a business. If someone in your team is tech savvy and likely to be able to maintain the website and upgrade and add to it as needed, then perhaps the reliability of an established company is not so important. On the other hand you might prefer to pay a little extra for the experience. The answer to these questions will vary from business to business.

Website features

The second factor Lesley explained that can affect price is the features you want on the website. Obviously some features cost more to build on a website than others. Don’t let this stop you asking for everything you want initially. Even if you have a small budget, you should always ask for all the things you want in the initial website quote. If the budget blows out, you can adapt and remove some things from the website wish list. Here are a list of some of the more expensive features on websites:

E-commerce
Private member areas
Interactive features eg. calculators
Slide shows & image galleries
Customising your “admin area” a lot (where you can edit your content without any technical skills)

Remember, when creating your website blueprint don’t let budgetary considerations limit your vision initially. Create your ultimate wish list in order of priority and then scale back as necessary.